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Private Notes
The 1990s are very different for the doctors who were medical students in the 1960s–and there are skeletons in the cupboard.
Rebecca tells Dick the hospital needs a new computer costing two thousand pounds but he is otherwise occupied with inviting minor celebrities to Sir Geoffrey's birthday party in pursuit of that elusive knighthood, though Sir Geoffrey is dismayed that the guest list comprises mainly strangers. On the night Rebecca and her students kidnap Sir Geoffrey and demand the price of the computer as a ransom. Dick pays up, hoping to stop the cheque but finds Sir Geoffrey was in cahoots with the students all along and, thanks to them, is loving his party.
Duncan is appalled that the penny-pinching hospital administrator, accountant Adam Quint, will not spend money on run-down wards, malfunctioning internal phone systems and other much-needed improvements. So he tells him that there is to be a V.I.P. visitor and Quint puts everything to rights, feeling cheated when a satisfied Duncan tells him it was his own fault for assuming that celebrity patient was not the heir to the throne but a little boy who needed his tonsils out - also called Charles Windsor.
Paul decides to have a vasectomy and persuades Duncan to do the same. Duncan has his, but on the way to the operating theatre Paul sees a pretty girl and backs out, having to pretend to Duncan that he had the snip. When he eventually sees the pretty girl with whom he would like to have babies again Paul discovers that she is about to have a sex change operation.
The three doctors are all set to go to Cardiff Arms Park to watch the rugby but, fearing wifely disapproval, claim to be going to the funeral of their late, unpopular colleague Bickerstaff, which is taking place near the ground. Along with Sir Geoffrey they attend the funeral, staying for the wake where they sample Bickerstaff's mother's crab and avocado dip, Unfortunately it lands all four of them in casualty with food poisoning before they can see the match - leading them to ponder on the fact that, even when dead, Bickerstaff knew how to ruin their day.
To the jealousy of some of his colleagues, Paul becomes a national celebrity as the Monday Medic on breakfast television, with his catchphrase 'It's all right, I am a doctor'. He gets a column in women's magazine Twenty-Something where he is invited to conduct research on why young women are attracted to older men, and finds himself smitten by the American researcher working with him. However it turns out that she was only using him, as her marriage to him would have given her a work permit.
Duncan is feeling stressed out. He rows with a young patient called Alec who swears by Paul Collier's new book and, having thrown a fit when his relaxation tape is also by Paul, comes to see that he is jealous of his colleague. To help him find out if private medicine is for him, Paul lets him take his Harley Street surgery for an afternoon but, after another meeting with Alec, appreciates that Paul does not have the answer for everything and is happy to stay at St. Swithins.
